Jeremy Gavron has written a profoundly moving semi-autobiographical account of his quest ‘in search of his mother’, Hannah. Born in Palestine in 1936, she was the daughter of distinguished Jewish parents: her mother became a disciple of Anna Freud; her father, the wisest man Jeremy has ever known, was a writer and literary editor of immense perception who served as a psychological-warfare officer in the British Army. Hannah was an ambitious and precocious child. By the mid-1960s she had grown into a glamorous and charismatic young woman. Married to the delightful and wealthy businessman Robert Gavron (known as Bob) and living in fashionable Highgate, Hannah was the mother of two boys and a successful lecturer at Hornsey College, then the dernier cri in the prevailing reactionary politics. She appeared to be the golden girl who had it all. ‘She was a blast of sea air through the place,’ recalled a colleague, David Page: 

I can still see her striding up the corridor: knee-length boots, dark tights and suede mini-skirt, with a Mary Quant hair-do. She would have a cheroot in one hand, a wonderful wide grin, and would quite likely be cursing someone or something. She was the first woman I had met